Cassidian Delivers Telecommunications Harmonisation for French Military

Cassidian has delivered the third phase of the Réseaux de Desserte Terre et Marine (RDTM) project as the military base in Toulon, France, enters operation. The objective of the RDTM project is to harmonise the voice systems currently in place at the French land army bases (MTGT system) and at the French naval bases (RVDM system), to create a single system in accordance with the new structure of Direction Interarmées des Réseaux d'Infrastructure et des Systèmes d'Information de la défense (DIRISI), the operator of the RDTM system. A further objective of this measure is to reduce network maintenance costs.

RDTM makes it possible to centralise the control and monitoring of the systems and networks at the new control centres and of the local maintenance facilities in France. The unification of the telecommunication networks at all French army and navy bases covers a total of 180,000 users at nearly 800 locations.

The third phase of the RDTM project, which is one of the most difficult to accomplish, covers the commissioning of the telecommunication network at the military base in Toulon. It affects 23,000 users distributed across a network with 35 sites and many different operational units. A team of approximately 20 people worked for 14 months to deploy the system in order to meet the delivery deadlines agreed to in the contract.

The next major phases of the project will involve updating the software at the land army bases (MTGT) and at the naval bases in Lorient and Paris, and the operational commissioning of the telecommunication networks at French overseas military bases in French Polynesia, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion, Mayotte and French Guyana.